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Time Magazine investigates a massacre in Iraq while Rumsfeld talks insanely about how Iraq is Nazi Germany and we won't leave for another umpteen years and Democrats call for his resignation while I call for his arrest for war crimes.

The next day a Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other. The Marines from Kilo Company held a memorial service for Terrazas at their camp in Haditha. They wrote messages like "T.J., you were a great friend. I'm going to miss seeing you around" on smooth stones and piled them in a funeral mound. And the war moved on.

But the details of what happened that morning in Haditha are more disturbing, disputed and horrific than the military initially reported. According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children. Human-rights activists say that if the accusations are true, the incident ranks as the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. service members since the war began.

Another My Lai Massacre. The military has used psychological research to create a system that causes soldiers to fall in love with each other. This is a replication of the ancient Spartan system minus the sex (sort of!). Many soldiers coming home fall apart during "decompression" because they cannot love or cleave to their wives easily and much of the PSTD symptoms are really them falling apart because they are no longer in this fake love situation.

This is why many "re-up" and the Pentagon is proud of this. They are a classic gang that has to love one and another and this means putting down girlfriends or old ladies and sticking with the gang members above all else.

So when a soldier dies, the response is much greater rage than normal. This means out of control soldiers running amock, attacking helpless civilians, killing babies, mothers, anyone. The military allows only right wing propaganda to be accessed or broadcast. For example, my own news service isn't allowed within the military system, it is blocked just like all and any similar antiwar sites are blocked.

The "blind rage" type of warfare the new military is dedicated to is disasterous and is at the root of what is falling apart for us in Iraq. A recent poll showed that the vast majority of soldiers honestly believed that Saddam did the 9/11 attacks. This shows us the high level of propagandization of lies being force fed to the soldiers and it is literally driving them insane since it isn't healthy to believe rank lies.

"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," Rumsfeld wrote in an essay published in The Washington Post on the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

He said "the terrorists" in Iraq were attempting to stoke sectarian tension and spark civil war, but that they must be "watching with fear" the progress in the country over the past three years.

This man is certifiably insane. First of all, we DID turn over Germany to the Nazis! Namely, the industrialists and others, the Nazi enablers and supporters were taken out of prison and re-instated during the Cold War! Worse, we took obvious war criminals and Nazis who were in the rocket and science programs and set them up in America! And praised them! Worse, we took obvious Nazis to South America and used them to run coups against democratically elected officials! Gads!

The rebellion is scared? This is the latest propaganda point. They are running away, you see, they hide, you see? So Rumsfeld who weasled out of fighting in Nam just like the other neo-cons and their leaders, Bush and Cheney, can't see the awful simularity with Nam. Evidently, Rummy is increasing the number of troops over in Iraq.

"The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case," Rumsfeld said.

But in an opinion piece published on Sunday in the New York Times, Eaton said Rumsfeld had proven himself "not competent to lead our armed forces" and therefore "must step down."

"First, his failure to build coalitions with our allies from what he dismissively called 'old Europe' has imposed far greater demands and risks on our soldiers in Iraq than necessary. Second, he alienated his allies in our own military, ignoring the advice of seasoned officers and denying subordinates any chance for input," Eaton said.

"In sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq," Eaton said.

Murtha is calling for Rummy's head, too. Rumsfeld ought to be arrested and put on trial. Milosevic's cell is unoccupied so there is now room for the Axis of Incompetent Evil: Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.

Of course, Feingold's recent demand that Bush be merely censored fell flat due to fear and trembling. Even though 50% of America wants this, it isn't enough. I suppose when 75% want this, it is a can-do? One would hope so. The way things are going, we will reach that number pretty soon!

On top of illegally spying on American citizens exercising Constitutional rights, the GOP has been caught in a morass of corruption as bribes are passed out so various mercenary organizations, ofter working for our top politicians, can suck up as much taxpayer backed funds as possible. This is all so very illegal and unconstitutional, time to put a lot of politicians in prison.

CIFA recently has come under fire following disclosures that it maintained information on individuals and groups involved in peaceful anti-war protests at defense facilities and recruiting offices.

The information was stored in a database that was supposed to be reserved for reports related to potential foreign terrorist activity.

In a March 8 letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a senior Pentagon official said that a review of the Cornerstone database had identified 186 "protest-related reports" containing the names of 43 people that were mistakenly retained in the database.

"These reports have since been removed from the Cornerstone database and refresher training on intelligence oversight and database management is being given to all CI (counter-intelligence) and intelligence personnel," said the letter from Robert W. Rogalski, an acting deputy undersecretary of defense.

The disclosure that CIFA was storing information on anti-war activities added to concerns that the Bush administration may have used its war on terrorism to give government agencies expanded power to monitor Americans' finances, associations, travel and other activities.

The administration's domestic eavesdropping program and FBI monitoring of environmental, animal rights and anti-war groups have also fueled such fears. The administration contends that its programs are legal and insists that they're designed to ensure civil liberties while protecting national security.

How on earth does spying illegally on citizens practicing their Constitutional rights "ensuring liberty"? Only people living deep inside Orwellia can state this sort of nonsense with a straight face.

Even during the anti-Vietnam war protests, the riots that did happen were nearly always begun by the police which is why we called them "police riots." I used to work at these protests mostly as a medic. But also as a parade marshall. Anyone agitating for violence was controlled by us, usually, we would walk them away from the demonstration. The police were always looking for an excuse to supress our marches so if someone was acting up, they would charge in and smash everyone in their path. Their tendency for hair-trigger violence made them annoying and frightful. Like a drunk spouse always on the verge of attacking the family at dinner.

What is also interesting about this news is how the Cunningham affair is exposing all sorts of hair raising side issues. The race to privatize war work, for example. This has caused the costs of our police state/eternal war machine to shoot to Mars and beyond. We are spending an insane amount of money, nearly all of it going to GOP supporters, and to grab this money, they, in turn, hand out bribes to our "representatives" and they use this money to warp election processes by giving huge amounts to pro-war, pro-corruption candidates.

Americans sit by passively as our government pays out billions of dollars a year across the planet for "private guards" for our embassies and our war zones. We bankroll the security of the Quisling ruling Afghanistan which is increasingly out of control, just this week, another warlord who supports him was rubbed out, in Iraq, these guards murder people for fun and run riot and have no one to answer to except their company presidents who hand out bribes to all and sundry all the way to the White House.

In New Orleans, after the hurricane, private companies were awarded contracts to go door to door to disarm American citizens. This mixing up of private armies with public affairs has many bad sides to it!

One is, private armies tend to take over. They can eventually subvert the government, this is what "Praetorian Guards" are all about! We can barely control our military via our "elected" officials but the citizens have zero control over private armies. Also, the tendency of private armies to loot is very strong. After all, they are there to make a profit.

Any cursory reading of Italian political history from 1000 AD to 1700 AD is a long and dirty tale of hiring private contractors to protect a city-state only to be taken over by them or abandoned by them or betrayed by them.

This is one reason why "citizen-armies" were a huge innovation. The Swiss started this back when they defeated the various noble-led suppressions. Training hill farmers to fight in massed squares was so successful, they hired them out to the various city-states in Italy and then discovered they could take over! To this day, the Vatican is still protected by Swiss hill farmer fighters in an ossified system.

Napoleon tapped the energy of the French Revolution to create mass citizen armies. The USA showed the way during the Revolution and the French military worked closely with this process over here and then translated it into French. Then Germany copied the system with horrifying results over time.

Why am I talking about the Roman army under the banner, "IN THE NEWS"? Because the United States now has a military that is moving toward the Roman model.

I don't think many Americans see or understand this transformation. Daily evidence—"contractors" killed in Fallujah, the use of hastily-trained Afghan troops to encircle the Tora Bora stronghold in Afghanistan—don't fit into any larger picture. Not every service is moving in this direction, but the Army certainly is. Meanwhile, the average American is convinced that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are being fought by American soldiers, when in reality many traditional military functions are now in the hands of the modern equivalents of auxiliaries and mercenaries.

This blog article has a pretty good take on all this.

Privatization of the military while making the citizens pay for it is a dangerous process that has no good end to it. When we stopped the draft and basically privatized the military by making it a seperate profession, we began the long road down into fascism without citizen participation. Bush Sr. was estatic when he egged America into fighting for Kuwait. We basically sold our services to the Saudi and Kuwaiti royal families and became a mercenary gang. We were repaid for all this by being repeatedly attacked by outraged Saudi and UAE members cresting with the 9/11 attacks and still on-going.

To keep up public support for all this, the owners of the various companies that are mercenaries have to run propaganda campaigns. This means suppressing people who want to stop the mercenaries. Thus, the corrupt contracts to spy illegally on antiwar agitators.

The super corruption is via Cheney and the Bushes running mercenary businesses on the side, reaping billions of taxpayer dollars in profits even as they personally create wars and mayhem in our collective names. They are trying as hard as possible to do this today, egging us all into a futile and insane confrontation with Iran. On top of all this mess, the oil corporations that are stripping America of all oil resources have latched onto our military to use them as means of negotiating contracts that benefit only the oil companies. This is another reason for the wars in the Middle East. We have to take over various countries so the oil corporations can steal the profits from pumping oil from the locals which drives them all nuts and causes them to attack us at every turn.

And on top of everything, this is why we are going bankrupt. The bills are in the trillions and piling up rapidly and the rich who are reaping the benefits of these mercenary activities are not being taxed at all while we get to foot the bill when the Chinese and Saudis decide it is time for the IMF to begin the payback process.

They should have called it "Sturm und Dreck." The latest war in Iraq was a fake fireworks display for CNN and Fox TV. Meanwhile, the real war within Iraq heats up, many more religious attacks, everyone is choosing sides in a massive show-down in the long running war between Shi'a (Shiites) and Sunni.

That sounds exciting! But according to a colleague of mine from TIME who traveled up there today on a U.S. embassy-sponsored trip, there are no insurgents, no fighting and 17 of the 41 prisoners taken have already been released after just one day. The “number of weapons caches” equals six, which isn’t unusual when you travel around Iraq. They’re literally everywhere.

On the anniversary of our illegal and ill besotted invasion, Bush needed a fireworks display. Since nearly everything this clown does is fake we got ourselves a nice Potemkin battle to entertain the dwindling numbers of Americans who support this illegal "President" who happens to be a total war criminal on the order of Hitler or the Japanese High Command.

Only he can't win no battles, can he?

I wondered about this latest battle. At first, I thought it was in Samarra, a city that seethes with hatred towards us. Like Fallujah, we leveled it over and over again and each time were surprised that it only got worse, who would imagine that!

Instead, it was off in the desert. "Oh, no! Not attacking tents and sheep herders with expensive bombs!" I sighed. Again and again, we attack miserable peasants who retaliate by being surly and nasty. Since they carry little and have little to lose and we give them no quarters or dimes, they can skulk around us, tripping us up, blowing us up and in general, being very stubborn and difficult.

I have used donkeys. When you keep them happy, they will plod along, ears down. When you annoy them, they lock their legs and you can hit them, scream at them or shove them and they won't move an inch. My tactic with the donkey (I was a kid back when) was to sit nearby and pretend to be oh-so-interested in a flower or blade of grass. The ears move towards me instead of flat back. The big brown eye shifts sideways to get a better look. Then the donkey moves over and the muzzle goes to my hand and I pet the muzzle and then get up and say, "Come along, come along," and off we go. It is weird how that works.

Well, the peasants of the Middle East know their donkeys and camels well. Getting maximum work out of minimum fuss is how they survive. They hate us and want to buck us and they will succeed unless we figure out how to make them happy but we are too busy stealing their patrimony. And we can't fake that.

All Iraqis know we are thieves. Their country has been invaded a zillion times since time immemorial.

Back in America, the insane media keeps beating the war drums trying to egg us into WWIII by making us scare of tiny Iran. Media Matters:

On the March 15 edition (7:00 p.m. ET hour) of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, and MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan discussed what they agreed were the likely political benefits to President Bush and congressional Republicans in November 2006 if Bush were to launch a pre-emptive war against Iran. Buchanan posited: "I don't think he's going to do it for political reasons, but if he did do it for political reasons, you'd do it in October," because "you'd get right up the polls ... you'd win the election." Matthews, who confessed to being "staggered by the possible truth" in Buchanan's comments, invited Milbank to comment. Milbank noted that "[t]here is undoubtedly a rallying effect," but, according to Milbank, the question regarding a possible war against Iran launched partially -- or purely -- for political gain is: "Exactly when do you do the action, and exactly how long do you stay up at the top of the heap here?"

You can practically hear these inhuman vampires smack their blood red lips. They are childishly gleeful at the thought of more dead civilians, more raging fires. This will keep the GOP in power and keep their tax cuts and investments overseas safe! They will all be billionaires and live in giant bubbles they can take all over the planet!

Of course, none of these creeps will go to Bagdad. They all remember the top TV news reader who played GI Joke in Bagdad only to be blown up and now is a vegetable in a hospital, barely able to ask for water or recognize his own family.

In total contravetion of the founding of the United Nations, the USA, the world's biggest and nastiest empire has just reaffirmed our dictator has the right to launch an invasion based only on his beliefs that another nation might possibly have weapons he doesn't want them to have. Arrest Bush.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday released second national security strategy report, claiming that Iran may pose the greatest challenge to the United States and reaffirming strike-first policy.

In the 49-page report, Bush reiterated pre-emptive policy he first outlined in 2002. He said that diplomacy is the U.S. preference in halting the spread of nuclear and other heinous weapons.

"If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self-defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack," Bush wrote.

"When the consequences of an attack with weapons of mass destruction are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize. ... The place of pre-emption in our national security strategy remains the same."

On Iran, Bush said, "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran. For almost 20 years, the Iranian regime hid many of its key nuclear efforts from the international community, yet the regime continues to claim that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons."

Right on the heels of Israel illegally invading Palestine after forcing the UN troops out in order to kidnap a prisoner so they could illegally torture him, the sponsor of all this, the USA, yaps about the threat from Iran which is around zero at this point. Iran isn't invading anyone.

They do support the Palestinian state which the USA and their puppet masters, the Israelis, don't want to exist. The fear that any nation with nukes might side with the Palestinians keeps DC and Tel Aviv awake at night. Already, Russia and China are toying with an alliance with the Palestinians. They are waiting for the right moment.

This is all so insanely easy to predict what will happen next. Already, China has used American aggression with great deftness and has pulled Iran closer and closer and now is openly telling us to can it. This news item wasn't in the Imperial New York Tel Aviv Times. It wasn't front page in the Washington Imperial Post. It was a top feature in the official Chinese news service.

Tracking what is bugging Beijing is very important and this is my window to their collective bee-minds. Tells me what is important to them and they are very agitated by Americans screaming at them about their military. They slapped us down on the Human Rights issue and rightly so. The bloody kettle calling the bloody pot bloody is just beyond stupid, it is irritating.

Bush openly sided with Japan when he passed through Asia, acting like Japan's puppet, he forgot that China is the one to court, the Japanese have been riding on us for a long time and to keep balance it would pay for us to triangulate but instead we chose to strangulate and this is why Congress is running around in circles today, screaming because they can't balance the budget at all and they can't ask China for another yuan.

Meanwhile, Russia and China launched their official website. Bad banner text. Gah. They should hire me to fix it. Anyone who wants to hire me for artwork feel free to email me (heh).

Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss the possibility of building an oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to China, Russian Ambassador Sergei Razov said here Thursday morning.

Razov told a press conference that discussions on the feasibility of constructing an oil pipeline extending from Russia's Skovorodino to the Russia-China border are underway between Transneft of Russia and China National Petroleum Corporation, which are to take charge of the pipeline construction.

The proposed pipeline will be a branch of a planned oil pipeline that runs from eastern Siberia to Russia's Pacific coast.

Razov said Russia-China cooperation in the field of energy is "very important." He expressed the hope that during President Putin's visit to China from March 21 to 22, the heads of state of the two countries will reach new agreement on energy development.

Remember, it isn't just the information, it is the ability to predict the future that is key to all analysis. I told the CIA eons ago, teasing out what is going on is fairly simple. One goes to many sources and then one assumes the people one is riddling out are as smart or smarter than oneself.

Except for Bush. He is remarkable. One can't underestimate his stupidity. He is surrounded by a huge gang or right wing screamers who can deafen the populace and mislead millions but there is nothing clever about this. If I were published on the NYT editorial page, and years ago, they occassionally carried my stuff, I would be heard by millions, too.

Right now, I have to hope some wayward readers stumble across my blog. This doesn't make me stupid or the mainstream media loudmouths clever. It simply is due to the size of our operations, mine being extremely small and and theirs incredibly huge.

Using the official Chinese news service, propaganda and all, I simply treat is as if it were the NYT since is it just as truthful and fair as the Times or WP are. All carry the water of the rulers. In the case of our papers, the pretence they are investigating something is what is so pathetic.

To know what is happening here, I read foreign press. To learn what is going on in China, I read the Times here. But they fail me now since they carry only really poorly researched stories since they need to make China look weaker than the feeble, dying USA empire. This is plain silly at this point.

China is rising. We are falling. We better figure out the facts of life: empires bleeding red ink from every pore are dying. It is called "bleeding to death from a thousand cuts."

Israel, a violator of nonproliferation, claims the right to unilaterally attack Iran if they do the same thing Israel has done. Japan and America fire off interception missile even as Japan openly mocks China yet again. Russia, under attack by America, strengthens ties with China, America encourages India to expand nuclear weapons stockpiles, America attacks China's human rights records so China returns the favor, pointing out how America is just as bad if not worse.

If the U.N. Security Council is incapable of taking action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself, Israel's defense minister said on Wednesday.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was asked whether Israel was ready to use military action if the Security Council proved unable to act against what Israel and the West believe is a covert Iranian nuclear weapons program.

"My answer to this question is that the state of Israel has the right give all the security that is needed to the people in Israel. We have to defend ourselves," Mofaz told Reuters after a meeting with his German counterpart Franz Josef Jung.

The idea that one has an unilateral right to attack, pre-emptively, anyone who might at some future time, be a possible attacker is the standard the USA has created. This is a recipe for hairtrigger wars which is what the UN was supposed to prevent.

During the Cold War stalemate, at various times, both huge empires in this deadlock used proxy states to poke at each other but whenever it came to direct conflict, one or the other would back down. Today, thanks to Pax Americas, we see everyone threatening everyone else. The rank hypocricy of the present sword rattling is particularily noxious. Americans imagine that being hyper armed with hair trigger nukes is perfectly fine and waving our other weapons in front of other countries' faces is perfectly OK but no one else may do this. We recently threatened China demanding they stop building up their military, for example.

Israel kidnapped a scientist from England who exposed the building of illegal nukes by the Zionists. He is now out of prison but is denied the ability to talk about this stuff with the media not that the media in America is allowing anything Mr. Vanunu says appear here! As usual, Israel can kidnap, assassinate, lie, spy, cheat or openly steal and our rulers shrug it all off. But then, when others do far less, suddenly our rulers are furious and demand justice. Not that they care about justice, it is only another tool to attack yummy targets of their lusts and desires.

China is increasingly angry about the Taiwan issue as well as the incessant reports about how evil China is coming from the world's number one police state, the USA. I still remember our propaganda during the Cold War, about how we loved democracy and voting and all that and then those pesky people in the South, demanding the right to vote, would screw up the propaganda schemes. One of the many reasons Hoover who ran the FBI hated Dr. Martin Luther King so much. This is also why our government was forced to pass the Civil Rights Act. We had to have some connection with reality while bellowing about freedom and democracy.

The vote stealers running the country today love to talk about voting. This seriously irritates other world leaders who play the same tricks the GOP games. They are very angry about our fake interest in freedoms.

China issued Thursday the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2005 in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2005 issued by the U.S. State Department on Wednesday.

Released by the Information Office of China's State Council, the Chinese report listed a multitude of cases to show the serious violations of human rights both in and outside the United States.

"As in previous years, the U.S. State Department pointed the finger at human rights situations in more than 190 countries and regions (including China) but kept silent on the violations of human rights in the United States," says the document.

To help people realize the true features of this self-styled "guardian of human rights," it is necessary to probe into the human rights abuses in the United States in 2005, it says.

One wishes the USA would just grow up. All the time, I see articles written by right wingers that all love to say how "young" America is. Well, we are very old, we built a democracy that was pretty ricketty and jerry-rigged for quite a few years and when we finally go the Civil Rights Act, this was all dismantled via changing the rules controlling the media allowing rich people to buy up all the media outlets and spew only rank right wing propaganda and taking over the voting mechanisms so with a flick of the wrist, vote tallies can be faked.

Here is an example of the nasty police state brutal mind control businesses our corporate masters are building up at our own expense, we are paying for this junk: From SCL:

An Opcentre is a command facility for strategic communications.

In this always-ready environment researchers can identify target audiences using highly advanced statistical models, strategists can orchestrate campaigns using the most effective scientific methods and media producers have access to innovative production techniques.

These units of expertise combine to create one of the most dynamic and influential ‘weapons' in the world.

An Opcentre puts influence, control and power back into the hands of the government and military, giving them greater power to influence the enemy in time of conflict and enhanced access to their citizens during a crisis. For instance, an Opcentre can be designed to override all national radio and TV broadcasts, allowing the government and military to communicate with the public as the need arises.

The Opcentre is a formidable tool for Homeland Security, Conflict Reduction, International Public Diplomacy and un-mediated Government communications.

Big Brother needs scared people afraid of war so He can wage war in the name of peace. Seeking eternal security, the police state has to control all people in all places at all times. Shock and awe coupled with death and destruction is supposed to produce happiness and security the bully-boy way.

The classic method of producing security via diplomacy has collapsed with Israel and their puppet state, the USA. On behalf of the belligerent state in the Middle East, the USA is reduced to snarling at close former allies. Meanwhile, the other super powers are merging. From Xinhua Net:

Russian President Vladimir Putin will pay a state visit to China from March 21 to 22, a visit which analysts say will facilitate the pragmatic comprehensive cooperation, including energy cooperation, between the two countries.

"President Putin's visit aims to enrich current Sino-Russian cooperation by launching more pragmatic and down-to-earth programs since China and Russia began carrying out most of their cooperation at the government level in the previous years," said Jiang Yi, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

With regards to energy cooperation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday that "energy cooperation between China and Russia is mutually beneficial and complies with the interests of both countries."

Qin described energy cooperation as a major part of Sino-Russian comprehensive cooperation, saying "China will work with Russia in an effort to enhance cooperation in the energy field."

China and Russia have agreed to ensure a steady oil supply to China by rail, promising an annual supply of at least 15 million tons of oil as of 2006, according to a communique issued by the two governments last year.

China is preparing for WWIII. I suppose they see this as inevitable at this point, judging from the way the USA's dicator is reacting. They won't fight it over Iran, Iran is too far away, Russia is much closer and Russia doesn't want to see Americans wrecking Iran while strengthening bases on their own perimeter. So both Russia and China have many reasons to bar American/Israeli attacks on Iran and Iran knows this. For public consumption, Russia and China ritualistically speak out against nuclear proliferation and of course, they both silently point to the recent USA/India pact that cements nuclear technology assistance to a violator of nuclear proliferation.

China was "shocked" by the Japanese Foreign Minister's recent remarks which contradict the China-Japan Joint Statement, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Thursday.

Qin said at a regular press briefing that China strongly protested against the remarks that grossly interfere in China's internal affairs.

When speaking with a parliamentary committee, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso called Taiwan "a country".

Qin said the Taiwan and historical issues between China and Japan form the important basis of ties between the two countries. Japan has "made the commitment" in the three political documents governing the Sino-Japanese ties and China hopes Japan will strictly abide by it, Qin said.

The three documents are the China-Japan Joint Statement, the Peace and Friendship Treaty and the China-Japan Joint Declaration.

World Wars have started over less, you know. People who can't understand how or why massive wars break out should take a closer look at history. Namely, reading diplomatic cables from the year before WWI or the year before WWII started, one can clearly see the outlines of what is going to explode. The other thing to look at is the industrial health of the leading empire in each case. This is where historians often stumble since they look to individuals rather than inevitable economic forces. Since the massive (ILLEGALLY GAINED!) British Empire has to be "the good guy", historians overlook the real lesson of WWI and WWII: all empires force world wars because this is the only way to fight them as they collapse internally.

America is collapsing. Our rising violence is a symptom of this collapse. The bellows we are hearing is the sound of a mighty beast stuck in the tar pit, flailing about. Americans are passively watching the Punch and Judy show going on over Iran as if this is some distant matter and all we have to do is insure that oil state can't defend itself from us and all will be well. Europe, the old Maid of Imperialism, is terrified of Iran having nukes because they plan to suck Iran dry even more than America dreams this since they are physically much closer. They already know that Russia has its claws around their collective necks and they hope to throw off Russia by conquering Iran's oil fields. This is an insane dream. And the saddest part is, Russia has a huge customer for their oil products: China! China has to go to a lot of trouble to get oil from Iran but Russia can pipe this stuff directly to China.

America is relying more and more on oil that has to travel far in expensive ships that are also very vulnerable. This is another reason for our rising panic here at home. Unlike WWI and WWII, our vulnerablilty is much greater since all others have to do is stop the conveyor belt which is causing more than a quarter of the world's resources to flow to America.

And cutting this off is ridiculously easy. As I keep warning my fellow citizens. Japan can't suck up $500 billion in red ink every year just for our government nor can they suck up another $900 billion in lopsided trade.

Which takes us back to the Middle East. The despots there are pouring money into buying up American ports, American businesses, bribing American politicians via lobbyists. From the WP:

Middle Eastern investment in the United States is once again picking up steam, showing big gains since the tense period following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And while some takeovers are triggering alarm -- most famously, the purchase by a Dubai-owned company of a seaports management firm -- others are evoking warm welcomes.

Spearheading the trend is Dubai's Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktum (popularly known as "Sheik Mo"), ruler of the freewheeling city-state, which is part of the United Arab Emirates. The ports deal is just one of a series of recent purchases by companies he controls.

They have figured out all of America is now for sale and they are buying, big time. Israel has to first suction money out of America before getting enough to bribe politicians into obeying them rather than the now disposessed American voters whereas the rich Sheiks can buy direct, cash and carry. Thanks to the high price of oil.

They don't want to see a nuclear Iran because of ancient grudges. So they push us into confrontation where they get to sit on the sidelines and make money while we die. And worse, trot back over here to use the money gained in milking our military machine and spend it here, buying up our military/industrial complex. This is so stupid. This ring around the rosey is missing someone: the American populace who are confronting huge cuts in social services, wages, inflation and outsourcing. We come dead last.

This is why Bush was praising India for stealing American jobs. This is why the ports funneling all that Asian stuff is going to be moved to Mexico so we don't even get the transportation jobs! From the Monthly Review:

Capital’s relentless search for cheap labor constantly alters the flow of surface transportation in North America with widespread consequences. The end-of-century deindustrialization of the United States and importation of cheap commodities from the Far East through the West Coast reversed historical east-west transportation patterns and established Los Angeles and Long Beach as the largest ports in the nation. To minimize transportation costs, which for many products are higher than the cost of production, intermodal transportation of containerized imports was developed. Manufactured goods are packed into mobile shipping containers at factories in the Far East and travel by ship, train, and truck to distribution centers and, ultimately, consumer outlets across the United States. Currently, intermodal transportation of cheap imported commodities is the lifeline of the American economy. In 2004, the Port of Los Angeles processed 7.3 million container units and Long Beach handled 5.8 million. These two ports alone accounted for 68 percent of the West Coast total and are, by far, the largest employers in California. U.S. workers, who have seen so many lucrative manufacturing jobs moved overseas, assumed that import transportation and distribution jobs could not be offshored and were, therefore, relatively secure.

This is ridiculous. We are all New Orleans. The barriers that should protect us are blown up and the sea is rushing in and we are drowning.

Which is why the sabres are rattling, the swords are being drawn, the shouting is loud and our dictator wants total power so he can "protect" us.